Peoples (store)
Encyclopedia
Peoples is a defunct chain of department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

s located in the Puget Sound
Puget Sound
Puget Sound is a sound in the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected marine waterways and basins, with one major and one minor connection to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean — Admiralty Inlet being the major connection and...

 area of Washington.

The company was founded in 1888 in downtown Tacoma
Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

. The flagship store opened in 1895 at the corner of Pacific and 11th Street, which was the main intersection of downtown at the time. The store was expanded to the south in 1957.

Peoples first expanded in the early 1940s by operating a chain of appliance stores called Electric City in many Puget Sound cities. Many of these stores would later be expanded to include apparel and would be rebranded under the Peoples name.

By 1948 there were twelve stores in the Peoples chain. By 1968, the chain had consolidated its 12 small stores into seven larger regional stores. The new stores anchor
Anchor store
In retail, an anchor store, draw tenant, anchor tenant, or key tenant is one of the larger stores in a shopping mall, usually a department store or a major retail chain....

ed several mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

s as well as stand-alone locations in downtown areas.

The company was shut down by its parent company, Mercantile Stores
Mercantile Stores
Mercantile Stores Company Inc. until 1998, was a traditional department store retailer operating 102 fashion apparel stores and 16 home fashion stores in 17 states. The stores were operated under 13 different nameplates and varied in size, with the average store approximating . Store names...

, in 19??. The flagship Tacoma store was remodeled and renamed Puget Sound Plaza and currently houses offices and a Key Bank
Key Bank
KeyBank is a regional bank headquartered in Key Tower within Cleveland, Ohio's Public Square. , it is the 19th largest bank in the United States based on total deposits...

branch.

Further reading

  • Polk City Directories 1964-1983
  • "Tacoma Store Has Branch In Chehalis." The Chehalis Bee-Nugget LIV(1937): 3.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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